Month: October 2017

Tentacle Tuesday: Domesticated Octopus Seeks Soulmate

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Meet an old man’s pet, Poochy. Like most pets, he gets a little impatient and loud around mealtime, but forgive him – he’s just a healthy animal who needs his calories. Who’s a good boy?

It’s Tentacle Tuesday, and today’s offering is this barking mad (hehe) and delightfully nonsensical story with script and pencils by Jim Starlin and inks by Wayne Howard.

« The Hotel » is a mere 2 pages long, so here it is in its full and unabridged glory:

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This is no plebeian octopus. This tentacled horror, this mutated dog-like atrocity, is a force for moral good, dammit, dishing out all the punishment these evil-doers deserve! (Or maybe it’s just hungry.)

This tale of woe comes from Weird Mystery Tales #4 (Jan.-Feb. 1973), with a cover by Jim Aparo. It re-interpreted the story somewhat, making the thug’s comeuppance a little more immediate, but it’s still the same basic plot device: there’s the Deus ex machina, and there’s what I call Sudden Tentacles. Don’t know how to wrap up your story? Bam! tentacles out of nowhere, and everyone forgets that your tale makes no freaking sense.

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Continuing this rather disturbing theme of stay-at-home octopuses, we have another contender for someone’s beloved pet: this sweet little (metaphorically speaking) guy from « Dum-Dum’s Basement » (Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #93, August 1979).

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Art by Mel Crawford. Dum-Dum’s pet will soon want flesh instead of fish! (I also like how some people don’t give a shit about having a permanently flooded basement.)

Then we have the prototypical Sudden Tentacles and set at home, too: this panel from a chilling Tom Sutton and Nicola Cuti story called « Those Tentacles! » (inventive title), published in Ghostly Tales #106, August 1973.

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“The tree branches remind me of those tentacles… those slimy, winding tentacles squeezing the life from Jake!”

There’s a scene in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (at 3:55) that quite terrified me as a kid – a girl reaches over a sink to turn the water on, and the tap sprouts… appendages… and grabs her hand. I wish Freddy Krueger was into tentacles, I would have spent fewer sleepless nights in my youth.

Wishing all of you peaceful nights of slumber… until the next Tentacle Tuesday rolls around – and it will.

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This itty-bitty octopus will haunt your nightmares.

˜ds

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 10

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« Ever been to a maniac party held in a haunted house? Well, if you don’t frighten easily, you’re welcome to attend Etta Candy’s — but be careful or you’ll lose your scalp! »

Here’s a real hallowe’en corker from the Golden Age of comics, featuring the ageless Wonder Woman, presented here by her original creative team… with a twist. While the story is credited to Charles Moulton (the nom de plume of William Moulton Marston), it was ghost-written by his former student and collaborator Joye Hummel (1924-), the first woman to write Wonder Woman’s adventures. She is frequently credited for being the first woman to script superhero comics, but nope, that’s at least three years after Tarpe Mills gave the world her Miss Fury.

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This is Sensation Comics no. 57 (DC, September, 1946). Art by the sensational Harry G. Peter.
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Now you know what a Maniac Party is. The haunted house and the creepy cemetary (sic) are optional, but they sure do help set the properly demented mood.

Unfortunately, Joye appears to have been left out of the recently-released biopic Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. Too complicated? I guess a ménage à trois is plenty to handle already.

Check out the film’s trailer (well, one of them, at any rate.)

– RG

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 9

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« Who would have thought, in 1974, as I cruised the aisle of the San Francisco Safeway with Art Spiegelman, hunting for likely targets, that our little barbs sent at consumerism and package design would have such staying power? » — Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead

Topps’ legendary Wacky Packages, the bane of school authorities at their peak in the 1970s, have been opening kids’ eyes in the art of tipping over sacred cows for generations. Since everyone’s presumably  well-versed in the classics (essentially the initial 1967 and 1973-75 burst of creativity), it wouldn’t be a bad idea to showcase some newer fare. In the wake of an internet-fuelled wave of nostalgic popularity, the Wackies rose again with their All-New Series (2004-), and their quality is every bit as impressive as it ever was… thanks in part to a plethora of new products to lampoon, greater creative latitude for the perpetrators, a motley crew of grizzled veterans and homely new faces.

For your contemplation, here’s a trio of Hallowe’en-appropriate cards from new series 7 (2010).

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Painted by Jason Edmiston from a concept by Mark Parisi
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Painted by Tom Bunk from a concept by Mark Parisi
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Painted by Brent Engstrom from a concept by Mark Parisi

Brent Engstrom, who painted nineteen cards for the 2010 series, shares some valuable insights (and preliminary sketches): http://monkeyboycomic.blogspot.ca/2010/08/wacky-packages-all-new-series-7-2010.html

And here’s the great Jay Lynch’s (1945-2017) account of how a set of Wacky Packages was created, from idea farm to market: http://wackypackages.org/history/production.html

– RG

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 8

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« But the Ancient Evil remains… waiting to rise and prey on an unsuspecting humanity »

Adapting Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s sinister literature to other media has always been as tempting as it is daunting. It absolutely requires the discernment to know when to hold back and when to go all out, and therein lies the difficulty: it’s a rare gift.

Eureka Productions’ Graphic Classics series of anthologies wisely chose, for the cover of its HPL entry (from 2002), a detail from Todd Schorr’s wry 1993 painting, H.P. Lovecraft’s Fried Seafood Cart.

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Schorr, born in 1954 in New York City, first became aware of HPL in high school and « became totally consumed in his writings. » « When read now », continues Todd, « Lovecraft’s work still retains the same spine-shivering thrills I first experienced. »

More Schorr: http://www.toddschorr.com/

And a view of the full painting (taken in a gallery, pardon the reflections):

– RG

Enormous Ectoparasites vs Enterprising Young Man

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« How do you know you’re facing a tough mosquito? You slap him and he slaps you back! »

We’re in October, and I’m still getting mosquito bites. I have no polite words to say about that (not in mixed company, anyway). However, the blood-sucking buggers did make me think of a colourful, frequently violent (but also quite funny and oftentimes charming) strip, Cowboy Henk.

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What, you don’t keep a drumstick-shaped club in *your* closet?

Written by Belgian cartoonist Kamagurka (a.k.a. Luc Zeebroek) and illustrated by Flemish cartoonist Her Seele (real name Peter van Heirseele), Cowboy Henk ran in the weekly Flemish magazine Humo from 1981 to 2012 (and, once this strip was translated to English, it also appeared in Art Spiegelman’s Raw.)

The strips have been collected in “King of Dental Floss” published by Scissor Books in 1994, which is a tad difficult to find, but quite worth it, in my opinion. Me, I’m lucky to have an anthology in French (published by FRÉMOK in 2013), easier to acquire than the English version. Of course if you speak Dutch, there’s many collections available to you that the rest of us have sadly no use for!

 

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 A man in a movie theater noticed what looks like a mosquito sitting next to him.
“Are you a mosquito?” asked the man, surprised.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing at the movies?”
The mosquito replied, “Well, I liked the book.”

~ ds

The perils of ice-cream (with fudge sauce)

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Gluyas Williams (1888-1982) was an American cartoonist whose work was published in The New Yorker, Life, Collier’s, etc. His charming one-page cartoons show a keen understanding of human nature; sometimes there’s a recurring topic – for instance, “The World At Its Worst” and “Snapshots Of…”*.

So here’s “Snapshots of a woman eating a sundae” (1926) for your enjoyment, but please don’t blame the subsequent weight gain due to ice cream cravings on me.

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If you want a catalogue of little annoyances, petty vexations and funny paradoxes of life that will make you chuckle in embarrassment of recognition, you can watch some George Carlin sketches… or read some Williams cartoons, a good selection of which is available here: http://www.gluyaswilliams.com/dailies01.htm (No, this type of humour wasn’t born yesterday, and although technology marches on, the basic stuff stays if not the same, then similar.)


*Somehow I’m reminded of Sergio Aragones’ “Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men? The Shadow Knows” leitmotif).

~ ds

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 7

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« Aww, I bet he wasn’t so tough!
Look how skinny he was! »

Egyptian-born (but of Greek descent) Basil Gogos (March 12, 1929 – September 13, 2017), may be most celebrated for his prodigious run of Famous Monsters of Filmland cover paintings. Ah, but that’s hardly all he’s done, and done well: advertising, paperback covers, film posters*, men’s adventure illustration…

His forays into the world of Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie were quite rare, so let’s savour them. This is Eerie no. 30 (November, 1970), depicting a scene from Don Glut and Jack Sparling‘s “The Return of Amen-Tut!”. Read it here.

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…and here’s a look at Gogos’ original painting.

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Thanks for all the colourful nightmares, Mr. Gogos!

*his Alain Delon looked more like Bob Guccione Sr., which frankly is no compliment. And is that supposed to be Ornella Muti? No cigar, Mr. Gogos. Still, the film (misleadingly) depicted here, « La mort d’un pourri » (1977), is a superior political thriller that anticipates several of the less savoury aspects of globalization. This is the original art from the Spanish poster… « Muerte de un corrupto ».

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Guccione

And here are Mr. Guccione, bon vivant and founder of Penthouse Magazine, and Ms. Muti, the quintessential Italian starlet of the 1970s, as she appears in the film.

– RG

 

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 6

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John Pound, best known for his psyche-scarring work on the Garbage Pail Kids (not a bad entry in one’s résumé, unless you’re applying for a position in accounting), dabbled in underground comix in the 1970s. This useful primer in DIY makeup, inspired by the work of such classic monster makers as Dick Smith, Verne Langdon and Alan Ormsby, has the drawbacks of being a tad time-consuming and rather irreversible, but these are mere quibbles.

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Originally published in The Gory Story Quarterly no. 2 1/2 (1972), edited by Ken Krueger, and reprinted in the much-easier-to-find-and-afford Ground Pound collection (1987, Blackthorne).

For further edification (and more genteel makeovers), this, in essence, is what was being lampooned. The Famous Monsters of Filmland Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook was a 1965 one-shot that’s nowadays rarer than Lady Effingham’s Eggs, presumably because all purchased copies were loved to bits. Let’s not forget to point out that this publication, like FMOF proper, was designed and hand-lettered by the incredible Harry Chester (who also designed Mad Magazine).

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– RG

Smug Saddle Sniffer

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Today’s linguistic lesson: what’s a snarf? I’ll let Kurt Vonnegut answer that one:

« Do you know what a twerp is? When I was in Shortridge High School in Indianapolis 65 years ago, a twerp was a guy who stuck a set of false teeth up his butt and bit the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs. (And a snarf was a guy who sniffed the seats of girls’ bicycles.) »

Here’s a typical illustration of a snarf, albeit a shockingly rich one, with a fittingly well-developed proboscis, in his not-so-natural habitat: golden-hour hues, a cozy armchair, and selection of vintage selles de vélo. Next time you see a bicycle with its seat stolen (let’s face it, these saddles *must* be acquired in illicit fashion), you’ll thank me for this mental image.

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This is Snarf no. 11, 1989. Dennis Kitchen gave his comic book series an apt title!

The cover by Rand Holmes (1942-2002), a Canadian underground comix artist probably best known for his Harold Hedd comic strip. (Look for the compendium of his exploits published by Last Gasp, Anus Clenching Adventures With Harold Hedd!)

~ ds

Hallowe’en Countdown, Day 5

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« Do not come to Transylvania unless
you are prepared for the gravest of terror! »

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Always one of DC’s underdog mystery titles, Weird Mystery Tales was actually more consistent than its sister titles. Its relative lack of success was perhaps due to its original host, Destiny, being a bit of a flat tire. He was replaced with Eve (you know, Cain, Abel…) with this issue.

Still, the entire run is worth seeking out, thanks to contributions from Jack Kirby (okay, leftovers, but delicious leftovers from the unpublished second issue of his Spirit World magazine), Sheldon Mayer, Robert Kanigher, Steve Skeates, Alfredo Alcala (his and E. Nelson Bridwell’s adaptation of John Russell’s The Price of the Head is my pick for the title’s finest moment; it appears in this issue), Frank Robbins, Ruben Nunag Yandoc, Michael Wm. Kaluta… hey, it’s an anthology: you *know* the list goes on and on.

This is Weird Mystery Tales no. 14 (October-November, 1974). Cover by Luis Dominguez. Mute terror… isn’t it more effective?

– RG